My Notorious Life, by Kate Manning.

The (notorious) Madame X tells her secrets, and her life, in these pages.  She grows up motherless, orphaned, when her Mam dies shortly after childbirth.  She is determined not to let other women succumb, so she becomes both midwife and abortionist (though the terms she uses are much more 19c. discreet– and fascinating to a…

My Brother’s Name, by Laura Krughoff.

When her beloved older brother develops paranoid schizophrenia and drops out of college then opts out of treatment, Janie feels that only she can take care of him and return him to his former self.  The way she thinks she can make this happen is by adopting her brother’s name (and previous identity).

Mrs. Poe, by Lynn Cullen.

This is a good one to read this week of Halloween!  Based upon the life of Edgar Allan Poe (and his Mrs. and his mistress) and oft’referencing his tales & poems (yes, “Nevermore”), the novel makes you want to turn to the literature itself to read the two in tandem.

Cartwheel, by Jennifer DuBois.

A fictional interpretation of the Amanda Knox case (I’m not giving anything away– the author mentions it in a prefatory note.)  For me, it’s more enjoyable reading it as fiction than as fact (or at least non-fiction (as the author mentions in a concluding note, “the act of imagining the experiences of fictional people develops our…